Question for those folks who have SLI

[bclagge]

Hi, I wanted to share my SLI experience with you. In the manage 3D settings tab of the nVidia control panel, what you set the global settings to is the default for every program. You can override settings for specific applications using "program settings."
You have to click "Add" to add UT3demo.exe. To my knowledge you don't have to change the name to bioshock.exe unless you want to force on anti-aliasing.
Which SLI setting? When I use "Force alternate frame rendering 2" I get spectacular results.

Single GPU: 20 - 40 fps on Suspense
alternate frame 1: 20 - 40 fps on Suspense
alternate frame 2: 40 - 80 fps on Suspense
split frame: Never even tried it after the success of alternate frame 2

Mobo: Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32x
CPU: AMD Athlon FX x2 4200+ 2.2ghz overclocked to 2.5ghz
Mem: 2 gb DDR2 800
GPU: Dual eVGA 7600 GS stock 400/800 overclocked to 575/945

[Spinner187]

Sorry if someone already said this, but I didn't read all the replies yet.

In some games SLI setups won't up the MAXIMUM frame rates much, but will scale alot better, as in:

single cards:
1280/1024 80 fps
1600/1200 60 fps
19xx/12xx 40 fps...

SLI:
1280/1024 80 fps
1600/1200 80 fps
19xx/12xx 70 fps...

It's very game dependent, but this happens quite often from the benches I've seen. You might not see those max frames ever go up, unless you up the cards themselves.

Yeah I read something similiar about that also, I guess I didn't word it right earlier

[[SOD]BART]

I am learning alot in this thread!

Question:

I am running a single gpu 8800GT... would it be faster if I was running a 32 bit os with 2gb of ram, or a 64 bit os with 4gb of ram?

btw, you never mentioned the FPS difference in single or sli mode. If you did then dissregard.

Thanks

[bazzwano]

lets hear those FPS's over by the helmet looking at the mountain across the map...!!!

[duddley]

Sorry if someone already said this, but I didn't read all the replies yet.

In some games SLI setups won't up the MAXIMUM frame rates much, but will scale alot better, as in:

single cards:
1280/1024 80 fps
1600/1200 60 fps
19xx/12xx 40 fps...

SLI:
1280/1024 80 fps
1600/1200 80 fps
19xx/12xx 70 fps...

It's very game dependent, but this happens quite often from the benches I've seen. You might not see those max frames ever go up, unless you up the cards themselves.

[Spinner187]

believe it or not, there is ddr2 that is 1200! yeah i know its a werid number, but it does existed. Saw it on newegg.com. Let me look it up

Edit: here is the link http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820134429

Edit: Oh yeah, u done the FPS test yet, and what is your gpu speed again

[NakhtiUT3]

im getting the striker extreme.. to impatient for ddr3.. gota have my build finished b4 i get UT3.. if i got 4 gigs... as said it would only use 2.5 of it due to the SLI ultras... hmmm im trying to finder performance benchmarks between the tw0 types of ram to help me decide.

DDR3 is already out but it is VERY EXPENSIVE .. the cheapest I found was $319 for a 2 gig pack. It is fast but not that much faster for the price imho. I was going to get this kind of memory if I would have gotten the E6850 cpu because that has an effective speed of up to 1600Mhz and the DDR3 memory is rated to go that high ... unlike the best DDR2 Ram which maxes out at 1066Mhz (I think).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR3_SDRAM

[NakhtiUT3]

No, I think NakhtiUT3 said you get 2.5 gig if u have 2-1gigs sticks and 2-512mb sticks.
I believe he is getting 3 gigs while having 4 gigs and sli setup

Actually for me you are correct and it is because the cards combined have 1 GB of memory which ALL gets mapped to that area in the 3-4 gig space because I actually have the physical ram. Now if you have 3 Gigs of ram you are okay because you are not putting any physical ram in that area where it would get used by video cards ... but in a dual channel system the only way to really do this is to use 2 1 Gb sticks and 2 512 sticks so you are still using all the ram slots in a dual channel system. You should be fine to run even GTX cards in SLI without losing more than than .5 gigs of ram in a 3 gig system. This is because there is so much video ram.

Heck when the 1 Gb cards come out unless you have a 64 bit OS it won't make any sense to use 4 Gbs of physical ram because 2 gigs will get used up if you do SLI with these cards ... these days it really appears that 64 bit Vista will be the way to go in about 6 months to a year when it becomes just a bit more stable. The 4 gig limit for 32 bit systems combined with how video memory is mapped makes them less than optimal for the future.

[Spinner187]

im getting the striker extreme.. to impatient for ddr3.. gota have my build finished b4 i get UT3.. if i got 4 gigs... as said it would only use 2.5 of it due to the SLI ultras... hmmm im trying to finder performance benchmarks between the tw0 types of ram to help me decide.

No, I think NakhtiUT3 said you get 2.5 gig if u have 2-1gigs sticks and 2-512mb sticks.
I believe he is getting 3 gigs while having 4 gigs and sli setup

[bazzwano]

im getting the striker extreme.. to impatient for ddr3.. gota have my build finished b4 i get UT3.. if i got 4 gigs... as said it would only use 2.5 of it due to the SLI ultras... hmmm im trying to finder performance benchmarks between the tw0 types of ram to help me decide.

[Spinner187]

ok so based on what you have said.. im starting to think instead of spending $360 (NZ) on 4 GB ddr2 800 4-4-4-12 that i would be better to get just 2 GB DDR2-1066 5-5-5-18 for $332 in the end, im not sure which is faster due to the timings



really keen to know those FPS'S

I wish I had a answer to that. More memory vs. Better timing and speed.
And what will really bake your noodle, what abour ddr3 when it comes out?

Yeah FPS please.

[bazzwano]

ok so based on what you have said.. im starting to think instead of spending $360 (NZ) on 4 GB ddr2 800 4-4-4-12 that i would be better to get just 2 GB DDR2-1066 5-5-5-18 for $332 in the end, im not sure which is faster due to the timings



really keen to know those FPS'S

[Spinner187]

No that is the truth ... which is another reason I did 4 gigs but you can also do 3 gigs by using 2 1 gig sticks and 2 512 sticks. But really you can't just do 2.5 because that would cause the system to actually be slower. This is true for any dual channel ram ... ddr1 and up.

Well I guess having more memory is better then having memory speed(to a certain point of course).
But I going to stick with 2, until vista comes out with service pack. Hopefully soon

[NakhtiUT3]

Oh I just remember something.

This may or may not be true but.

I heard in ddr2(and maybe for ddr3 for that matter) that if you run an odd number or ram sticks, you lose the Dual Channel function, therefore be a lose of speed or something or other.

It probably just speculation, but I going to google it after I post this.

No that is the truth ... which is another reason I did 4 gigs but you can also do 3 gigs by using 2 1 gig sticks and 2 512 sticks. But really you can't just do 2.5 because that would cause the system to actually be slower. This is true for any dual channel ram ... ddr1 and up.

[NakhtiUT3]

Oh ok thanks that helps me alittle, I was considering getting 4 gig 1066 ram(and 64 OS) when I upgraded my mobo. But I also read that after 3 gigs, extra ram would be useless at this point of gaming. So I'll just up my mobo and get 2 gigs of 1066 ram

Yeah I would recommend that ... like I said I just got four because of the great price and also Vista does run faster with 3 Gigs instead of 2 ... not much faster but still it is faster and I like my OS to load things as fast as possible.